Decides cross-platform or native honestly
React Native and Flutter are right for most applications and wrong for some. The answer depends on what the app does, not on what is fashionable.
Hire a pro
Mobile App Developer
An engineer who ships to a store, not just to a simulator. Which means release builds, signing, review rejections, permission prompts, and the fact that a bad version stays on some devices for months.
Shortlist
Within 24 hours
Deployed
Inside 2 weeks
Seniority
4+ years, shipped to both stores
Rate
Flat monthly
Wrong fit
Replaced, not billed twice
What they do
The build is half the job. Release is the other half.
Web software can be wrong for twenty minutes. A mobile release can be wrong for a fortnight, because you cannot take a bad version back off somebody’s phone.
Handles the permission conversation
Every prompt is a place users say no. Where it is asked, and what the app does when refused, is a product decision that engineers usually make by accident.
Manages the release train
Signing, provisioning, staged rollout, and a plan for the users who never update. The last one is the part that surprises people.
Tests on real devices
Not just the simulator and not just the newest phone. The bug that matters is on a four-year-old Android with 8% battery.
Watches crash-free rate
The single number that tells you whether the last release was a good idea, checked daily for the week after every one.
What they know
The tools, grouped by what they are for.
Nobody on the bench knows all of this. We shortlist against what your problem actually needs, and tell you where the gaps are.
Cross-platform
React NativeFlutterExpo
Native
SwiftSwiftUIKotlinJetpack Compose
Backend for mobile
RESTGraphQLOffline syncPush notifications
Release
App Store ConnectPlay ConsoleFastlaneStaged rollout
Quality
CrashlyticsSentryDevice labsDeep link testing
How we vet
Four exercises, all of them from real work.
No algorithm puzzles. Every exercise below is a task this role does in a normal week, and we watch the method more than the answer.
Ship a build to TestFlight
Not write an app. Ship one, with signing, to a device we hold. It is remarkable how many strong coders have never done this without help.
This alone removes a third.
Offline and reconnect
Given a simple list that syncs, make it behave correctly when the network drops mid-write and comes back. The conflict handling tells us almost everything.
A rejected release
We describe a real store rejection and ask what they would change. We want to hear diagnosis, not a guess at what the reviewer wanted.
The old version question
Ten percent of users are three versions behind. What does your API do about it. A good answer exists and most candidates have not thought about it.
Interview signals
Four questions for when you interview them yourself.
You interview every candidate we put forward, so these are yours to use. They separate somebody who has run this in production from somebody who interviews well.
Ask: how do you handle a user on a version from six months ago?
A strong answer
Talks about versioned endpoints, tolerant parsing, and a forced-update path kept for genuine emergencies rather than convenience.
A worrying answer
Assumes everybody updates. They do not, and the ones who do not are disproportionately the ones who will complain publicly.
Ask: React Native or native for this app?
A strong answer
Asks what the app does before answering. Animation-heavy, camera-heavy or background processing pushes native; forms, lists and content do not.
A worrying answer
Has one answer for every project. Usually the framework they know, which is a reasonable personal preference and a bad architectural argument.
Ask: what is your crash-free rate target and how do you hit it?
A strong answer
Names a number, usually above 99.5%, and describes watching it during a staged rollout so a bad build stops at 5% of users.
A worrying answer
Does not measure it. Which means the first signal of a bad release is a one-star review.
Ask: where does the app ask for notification permission?
A strong answer
Has an opinion: after the user has seen why it would help, never on first launch, with a soft prompt first so a no is not permanent.
A worrying answer
On launch, because that is the default. It is also how apps end up with a permanently unreachable half of their users.
Honestly
When this is the right hire, and when it is not.
Ask for this when
Good fit
- You are shipping to both stores and want one person accountable for both.
- An existing app has a poor crash rate or review rating and nobody owns it.
- You need offline behaviour that actually works.
Ask for something else when
Poor fit
- You want a mobile wrapper around your website. A responsive site is cheaper and better.
- It is a game, or anything built on a real-time 3D engine.
- You need deep platform work: a custom keyboard, a watch complication, CarPlay.
Questions
Before you ask for a shortlist.
Usually not. A cross-platform build with one engineer covers most business applications, and native specialists get pulled in for the specific screens that need them. We will say honestly when your app is one of the ones that needs two.
You do, always. The developer accounts, the signing certificates and the listings are yours, set up in your name. An agency that holds your store account holds your product.
Usually a day or two on both stores now, but it is not a promise anyone can make, and a rejection resets the clock. Release plans that depend on approval landing on a specific day are plans that break.
Next step
Describe the problem, not the job title.
Thirty minutes, and a shortlist within a day. If a mobile app developer is the wrong hire for what you described, you will hear that instead.